There are more books and other written works today than there have ever been before. Tomorrow will be a record-setting day, just as will be each day afterward. It’s impossible to read everything ever written, but the number of words we’re expected to take in(吸收,理解) keep going up just the same. That means that speed reading is a pretty good tool to have in your personal arsenal(n.军火库,武器仓库).
Speed reading isn’t just a matter of cranking up（加快） the speed at which your eyes cross a page, though: there are multiple methods for increasing your reading speed. It’s also worth considering that different approaches to reading have both benefits and drawbacks（n.缺点）. In general, the methods that allow a person to read faster don’t always provide for the same level of comprehension that slower reading allows.
Barriers to Speed Reading
No matter what approach a particular speed reading system takes, most start with eliminating bad reading practices and then accelerating reading speed through a series of exercises. Bad reading habits can include:
Sounding word out loud as one reads — or subvocalizing(v.默读)
Re-scanning over passages already read
Moving one’s eyes across the page as one reads
Using one reading speed for all reading material
Subvocalization is often considered the biggest barrier to speed reading. Because of the way that reading is taught in most schools — students learn to sound out letters rather than recognize whole words — most readers automatically sound out words, especially those that aren’t in their normal reading vocabulary. Subvocalization, no matter its value for initially learning to read, slows down most readers. That’s because saying a word, whether aloud or subvocally, takes more time than recognizing a word.
Speed Reading on the Computer
In many cases, the speed at which you read the page of a book will be identical to that at which you read words on a computer screen. However, some readers report being unable to increase their on-screen reading speed beyond 1,000 words — no matter how fast they read pages.
Some readers also find that larger computer monitors impede(v.阻碍) their speed reading; most speed reading systems recommend that readers rely on peripheral vision（间接视力）to read, rather than running their eyes across a page. With large computer monitors, taking in text at the edges of the screen can prove difficult. A simple fix is reducing the size of the window in which you are reading.
